It’s been awhile since I put together a list of random stuff I’ve found on the web and cool tips that have made their way into my inbox. So today I’ll try to make amends with an extra-long list:

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics is keeping track of all the layoffs. Why don’t you as well?
• Forbes is offering up its take on the Cogent-Sprint peering fight story I broke a few weeks ago. It is worth a read.
• Yahoo may have sold Kelkoo off for $57 million, much less than the $126 million sale previously reported. Damn, they spent $600 million buying France-based Kelkoo in 2004.
• Sarah Tavel of Bessemer has some excellent analysis as to how, much in the same way Wal-Mart and “category killers” like Staples have shuttered mom-and-pop stores, the same is happening online. Her story, “The Staples 2.0 Effect,” is one to bookmark.
• Make VoIP calls via Truphone on your iPod Touch. What’s not to like about this?
• My friend David Isenberg is ready to rock with the 2009 edition of F2C: Freedom to Connect conference in Washington, D.C., in March 2009.
• 3G be damned, the wireless industry is printing money with SMS. About $190 billion in 2008, according to Portio Research. That number is going to surge to $330 billion by 2013, they say.
• There were 174 million domain name registrations across all of the Top Level Domain Names (TLDs) at the end of the third quarter, up three percent over the second quarter and 19 percent higher than the same quarter last year. More on the VeriSign web site.
• The State of Spam and Internet Security Threats by Messagelabs is available here.

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Marine Mammal Skeleton Project: www.cfis.ubc.ca/page500.htm

• Dec. 2: UBC Names First Ombudsperson for Students
• Dec. 1: New UBC Applied Science Dean to Emphasize Serving Society
• Dec. 1: UBC Board of Governors Requests New Academic Plan for Sustainable South

• Dec. 6: Carols at UBC
• Dec. 7: UBC Science Show: Planes, Trains, Automobiles and Rockets
• Dec. 8: Antibiotic-Resistance – the Ongoing Arms Race
• Dec. 9: Mysteries of the Dark Universe - Dr. Rocky Kolb
• Dec. 10: President's Blue and Gold Revue
• Dec. 11: Hänsel und Gretel

Visit UBCevents, UBC's new campus-wide calendar: www.events.ubc.ca

• Museum of Anthropology launches visiting scholar fund
• New managing director announced for Faculty of Land and Food Systems
• School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture faculty and students receive awards
• Civil engineering group participate in symposium in Shanghai

Smibs Inc, the Candian startup behind SmibsNet has launched the service to the public. The site offers a set of tools that resemble LinkedIn, but are supposed to be more focused on project and task management than personal connections and resumes. The public beta will also open the network’s directory up to users who are not members of Smibs, allowing them to search for members involved in specified professions (much as they would on LinkedIn).

Besides SmibsNet (which is the social networking side of the site), Smibs will be releasing applications running on its platform. Currently available is Doorbell, an app similar to Highrise that is designed to be a sales application for workers who aren’t typically involved in sales (it essentially allows smaller businesses to complete sales-oriented tasks without a dedicated staff). The service was originally annouced in June, and released a small private beta in October.

CEO Peter Urban has also given us a document that he has forwarded to a number of major VCs in an attempt to entice them to use the service (you can see it below). Judging from the responses (one VC replied “I apologize for being dense, but what is that you want?”), it is probably wise not to mimic this strategy.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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OpeniMac offers cut-rate, aesthetically challenged Apple clones direct from Argentina originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
The sadly obligatory SCOTUS birth-certificate post  —  The Chicago Tribune briefly revives the Obama-birth-certificate kerfuffle in an update today, if only to throw more cold water on it.  Tomorrow, the Supreme Court confabs over whether to grant a review to Leo Donofrio's lawsuit after having …

Jenna Bilotta / Google Reader:
Square is the new round.  —  On the Reader team, we know that the old adage “change is good” isn't always true.  Sometimes, change is just change.  In this case, we hope that these decisions both improve your Reader experience today, and pave the way for additional improvements down the line.